0:00:12 > 0:00:16This fallen oak tree is about to become a piece of work
0:00:16 > 0:00:20devised by one of Britain's most original sculptors.
0:00:20 > 0:00:25A real idea has spirit energy in it, and they compel me to make them.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29They actually bring that energy with them.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33David Nash sees unique forms in each tree that becomes available.
0:00:33 > 0:00:38Over his 40-year-long career, he has fashioned over 2,000 sculptures,
0:00:38 > 0:00:42many of them monumental in scale.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46He also breaks with convention.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49He burns the forms he creates.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52He creates works of art that take decades to evolve.
0:00:52 > 0:00:57He purposefully creates objects that might not be seen.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01He allows nature to pick up and continue the sculpture
0:01:01 > 0:01:03where he and his chainsaws left off.
0:01:11 > 0:01:17His take on organic form is at once very literal, he's got literal wood,
0:01:17 > 0:01:20and as well as literal, it's metaphorical and symbolic.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23It stands for that world of experience,
0:01:23 > 0:01:25of the natural and the organic.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32Nash's sculptures have the hallmarks of both man and nature.
0:01:32 > 0:01:34They can be found all over the world
0:01:34 > 0:01:37from prestigious national collections, to the bottom of rivers.
0:01:37 > 0:01:42Being able to just make the stuff that comes out of him
0:01:42 > 0:01:46and not to be unduly influenced by fashion
0:01:46 > 0:01:50and what other people say or think or do.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54To David Nash, wood is more than just a raw material.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58It's led him to a deeper understanding of the properties of trees.
0:01:58 > 0:02:03His sculpture is a true collaboration with the forces of nature.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21For most of 2010, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park
0:02:21 > 0:02:26was the location of David Nash's biggest exhibition to date.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29263 pieces, representing every stage of his career,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32were gathered from all over the world.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36200,000 people have visited the exhibition.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40As well as being a survey of an important career,
0:02:40 > 0:02:42it was also a showcase for new works.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51Six months before the exhibition opened,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Nash was making new works on site at the park.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58Turning ideas into form, creating monumental sculptures,
0:02:58 > 0:03:00and a permanent work in the landscape.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09The steps being put into place here will serve a practical purpose
0:03:09 > 0:03:12as well as being aesthetically pleasing.
0:03:22 > 0:03:23Could you put it back?
0:03:23 > 0:03:26About an inch and a half.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36By the beginning of May, a reunion of sculptures on loan
0:03:36 > 0:03:38from collections all over the world,
0:03:38 > 0:03:42were assembled in the halls and galleries of Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45They have travelled here from as far afield
0:03:45 > 0:03:46as California and Shanghai.
0:03:46 > 0:03:51The idea is actually more flexible than the material, I've found.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55You've just got to get a sense of the idea into it.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58It's no good trying to be exact,
0:03:58 > 0:04:02because the feeling of an idea is not exact.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04It's just a compelling force.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10In 1978, the Arts Council made a film about an up-and-coming young artist.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14This film sits alongside Nash's own archive of film,
0:04:14 > 0:04:15video and photographs,
0:04:15 > 0:04:19which track the development of his ideas and working methods.
0:04:21 > 0:04:2630 years later, he is still studying the trees with a forensic eye.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33Nash has identified some raw material
0:04:33 > 0:04:35that will soon be given new life as sculpture.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42Long before it was fashionable to be green,
0:04:42 > 0:04:46Nash was determined to work only with wood that nature made
0:04:46 > 0:04:51available to him - trees blown down by the wind, or killed by disease.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54Only then will he consider its potential for sculpture.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06I would never take a tree if there was no reason to take it down.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09I can only really engage with it once it's down.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13Then I go over it like a dentist looking at teeth,
0:05:13 > 0:05:17checking the rot spots and what these forms are.
0:05:21 > 0:05:22The art of making a sculpture,
0:05:22 > 0:05:27for me it's trying to make an object which is more here.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30There are ways of doing this.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32I never polish the surface because
0:05:32 > 0:05:35my eye just slides off it. A rough surface.
0:05:35 > 0:05:40It needs to have holes and cracks in it which will draw the viewer in.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45It's got to have an animation, which is actually in the original tree.
0:05:45 > 0:05:50You've got to allow the echo of the source to resonate.
0:05:53 > 0:05:57The chainsaw is a heavy, cumbersome tool.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00Not the obvious choice to create delicate surfaces and texture,
0:06:00 > 0:06:05but Nash wields it as adeptly as a painter would a brush.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08What a lot of artists are interested in doing
0:06:08 > 0:06:14is trying to gather information, to explore certain situations
0:06:14 > 0:06:18in order to arrive at a position of greater knowledge
0:06:18 > 0:06:19or insight about the world.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22What is unique about David Nash
0:06:22 > 0:06:26is that he's chosen to focus his investigations on one particular material.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31Wood obviously, and on the places and the situations
0:06:31 > 0:06:34in which wood can be found.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38The work leads me.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41I've always been aware of possibilities.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45They just wink at me all over the place.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47If I'm alert to them, I can catch them.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53Locating a fallen tree with potential for sculpture,
0:06:53 > 0:06:56is the start of a hugely complex process.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59A massive oak tree has fallen into a river
0:06:59 > 0:07:01near Nash's home in north Wales.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04He needs a team of expert tree surgeons
0:07:04 > 0:07:07with a serious tool kit to access it.
0:07:09 > 0:07:14This is dangerous. These are very, very heavy pieces of wood
0:07:14 > 0:07:16and these people are very skilful.
0:07:18 > 0:07:23It's like you're investing an energy, and investing a focus
0:07:23 > 0:07:27into the material, so that material to me becomes very special.
0:07:27 > 0:07:29I've invested a lot into it.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32It's not like any piece of wood,
0:07:32 > 0:07:34it's a THE piece of wood.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40Those trees are probably 100 years old,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43so it's got a story, its own story.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46Its form is because of where it is,
0:07:46 > 0:07:49and because of where it is, it's fallen down.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52So that's all part of its narrative.
0:07:52 > 0:07:59I make mainly abstract work, but there is a strong narrative
0:07:59 > 0:08:01to the sourcing of the material
0:08:01 > 0:08:04and that the narrative goes into the form.
0:08:04 > 0:08:09I try and always source my wood from trees
0:08:09 > 0:08:13which have become naturally available, like this.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18It feels ethically OK for me to source my wood from this place.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23David? Just going to put the second...
0:08:23 > 0:08:25The actual dismantling of it,
0:08:25 > 0:08:28there are practical facts that I have to go with.
0:08:28 > 0:08:33Sculpture is a physical, factual art.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36You're working with substances which live in real space,
0:08:36 > 0:08:38which have real weight,
0:08:38 > 0:08:43so the actual sourcing of the material does condition the sizes
0:08:43 > 0:08:46of the pieces that I can then start with.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50Wood is a traditional material
0:08:50 > 0:08:53used by craftsmen and sculptors since ancient times.
0:08:53 > 0:08:55But in Nash's hands,
0:08:55 > 0:08:59trees become works of conceptual art with a primeval power.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03I usually start by making something I've done before
0:09:03 > 0:09:07because I don't have the anxiety of trying to find a new idea.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10It just gets it all flowing, it gets the sawdust flying,
0:09:11 > 0:09:17and it just connects me physically with what I've got to work with.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21Then after three days, usually, new ideas start to come.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24They're coming from the circumstance of that place.
0:09:24 > 0:09:29David Nash is associated with the British Land Art movement of the '70s,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32where landscape and art are inextricably linked.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37But for him, art was a bid for freedom to follow his own path.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40What's behind being an artist is being a free human being.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43So that was my real quest.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46When I was a youngster reading about artists,
0:09:46 > 0:09:48these artists seemed to be free.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52Typical thing of a teenage, English, middle-class boy
0:09:52 > 0:09:54being sent to a boarding school.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56My experience was this overwhelming sense
0:09:56 > 0:10:00of being controlled and moulded and modelled.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04So I was at war with anything that pushed authority towards me,
0:10:04 > 0:10:06or assumed authority over me.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09I had to take authority.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11That still lives in me now.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15The essential thing of an artist is to work out
0:10:15 > 0:10:18of their own personal journey and freedom.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28In 1967, David Nash moved to a remote slate mining town
0:10:28 > 0:10:30in North Wales that he'd known as a child.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32Blaenau Ffestiniog.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36His main motivation for moving here was an economic one.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40The derelict slate quarry workshops were full of cast-off planks
0:10:40 > 0:10:44of wood, a godsend to an impoverished young artist.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51So hence my working as a scavenger,
0:10:51 > 0:10:55not paying any money for my materials.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58Not trying to work in steel or bronze,
0:10:58 > 0:11:01or materials which actually would cost me.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05And I found this really suited me, in that I was picking up something
0:11:05 > 0:11:09that had been discarded or had no value,
0:11:09 > 0:11:13and I could bring some qualities to it.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16I didn't really know whether this was art or not.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18Blaenau Ffestiniog is in an area
0:11:18 > 0:11:21with the highest recorded rainfall in Wales
0:11:21 > 0:11:24and is situated at the foot of mountainous
0:11:24 > 0:11:26heaps of slate waste from the old industry.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30Moving to this grey, wet town after art college in London
0:11:30 > 0:11:34was the perfect antidote to London's competitive art scene.
0:11:34 > 0:11:41Coming to Blaenau was like coming to somewhere where nobody was watching.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46I was very naive and I started building a big tower here,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49because obviously that was very evident,
0:11:49 > 0:11:55but I felt I was separate enough to try this out.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58Hence the first tower was like an epic statement.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00Like trying to write a whole opera,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02a huge philosophical statement,
0:12:02 > 0:12:06and this moving through these various layers,
0:12:06 > 0:12:12going up through the legs and the guts and into the head and into the heavens.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17The tower was the start of it all,
0:12:17 > 0:12:21the seed from which ideas would evolve into a vast family of sculptures.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26What you have here, starting with this very early work,
0:12:26 > 0:12:29the first tower that he made in 1967,
0:12:29 > 0:12:33which was made up of bits of wood that he found in skips and round and about,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36this being the source of everything.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39This started to be him speaking,
0:12:39 > 0:12:43and then gradually you can see how the works expand out
0:12:43 > 0:12:46to form the full vocabulary.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48There's a real patience here.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52This is really physically hard, arduous stuff.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56You get here a real sense of someone's life evolving
0:12:56 > 0:13:00over a period of time, that's quite remarkable actually.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03I don't know another artist who's really traced
0:13:03 > 0:13:06their own life's work in this way.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15In 1968, David Nash acquired Capel Rhiw,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19a chapel in the heart of Blaenau Ffestiniog.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22At a cost of £200, this would enable Nash
0:13:22 > 0:13:24to keep his overheads to a minimum,
0:13:24 > 0:13:27and realise an ambition to fuse life and work.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Very few young artists have the opportunity of actually having
0:13:41 > 0:13:45their materials in abundance around them and unmade work or unresolved work,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47without having to put them away
0:13:47 > 0:13:51because they have to have the space to make the new piece.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55This bringing together of life and work
0:13:55 > 0:13:57is something that's crucial
0:13:57 > 0:13:59to an understanding of David Nash and his work.
0:13:59 > 0:14:03It seems to me that from the very beginning of his career,
0:14:03 > 0:14:06this is one of his stated ambitions.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10What that means is that the work not only informs the life,
0:14:10 > 0:14:12but the life informs the work.
0:14:12 > 0:14:17It gives us a body of sculpture and drawings and other projects
0:14:17 > 0:14:22that are in a strange kind of way autobiographical,
0:14:22 > 0:14:26but they also reflect the character of their maker,
0:14:26 > 0:14:29the character of the artist.
0:14:29 > 0:14:34This is a very, very powerful quality within David Nash's work.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40David Nash married Claire Langdown, an artist who also worked with wood
0:14:40 > 0:14:44at the time, and the chapel became a family project.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48If something interesting's going on somewhere, however far away
0:14:48 > 0:14:53from London or New York or wherever, people will hear about it.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01Now with two young boys, life and work was one and the same thing.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03Major galleries began to be interested
0:15:03 > 0:15:06and made the long trek to the Nash studio and home.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10People from the art world came to see the chapel,
0:15:10 > 0:15:13the work that was going on there.
0:15:13 > 0:15:19There was always something to see because he was seriously working.
0:15:19 > 0:15:23People liked the fact that he had made his house
0:15:23 > 0:15:26and he had made his kids' toys.
0:15:26 > 0:15:31We were like a sort of a team of artists when the boys were little.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36They were involved with everything we did.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39This picture is of William in David's arms
0:15:39 > 0:15:41while he's sawing a piece of wood.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44Just that lovely thing of them being
0:15:44 > 0:15:46able to be involved in what we were doing.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55Blaenau is a very, very interesting place,
0:15:55 > 0:15:56because you come to it through
0:15:56 > 0:16:00the extraordinary mountains of the National Park,
0:16:00 > 0:16:02and this incredible natural beauty.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06Suddenly you arrive in this hole within the middle of it,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09which is this man-made landscape.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11It has a sublime quality to it.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15These vast mountains of slate.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18And it's very impressive in a fundamental way.
0:16:18 > 0:16:23I know something David talks about is that this is a landscape
0:16:23 > 0:16:29that is made by man and nature, and that an understanding of that
0:16:29 > 0:16:31was something that was important for him
0:16:31 > 0:16:34in terms of his development as an artist.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37It's hard to imagine that his career would have developed
0:16:37 > 0:16:41in the same way, had he been working in a studio somewhere in London.
0:16:41 > 0:16:46So the move to north Wales not only took him out
0:16:46 > 0:16:49of that immediate art world context,
0:16:49 > 0:16:54but it gave him access to different ways of living,
0:16:54 > 0:16:56different ways of thinking about everything.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05I think for a lot of sculptors place,
0:17:05 > 0:17:09location of where they are, is very important. It runs deep.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14Particularly with Blaenau, which is like an enormous sculpture,
0:17:14 > 0:17:17where people have delved deep into the ground
0:17:17 > 0:17:19and brought out this material.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23If you go down into those quarries, which you can do, it's solid stone.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27They quarried it out, down, down, down there,
0:17:27 > 0:17:30blasting these rocks out, hauling them up,
0:17:30 > 0:17:32and then working them.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37Only about 20% was actually usable and this is the 80% waste.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41These beautiful diagonal lines have just found themselves
0:17:41 > 0:17:45out of millions of loose pieces which have just tumbled down,
0:17:45 > 0:17:52thrown away, but they've ended up with a very precise geometric form.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55So there's a tight and looseness about it at the same time.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57There is a paradox.
0:17:57 > 0:18:03In my work, I just do enough for the form to show itself.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06So it could be made up of many parts, like the red dome for example.
0:18:06 > 0:18:08There are over 150 pieces there,
0:18:08 > 0:18:11and they're quite loosely put together.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13The order is their size,
0:18:13 > 0:18:18but they can go in any order so long as the sizes grade upwards.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22So there's a looseness in the way of putting it together,
0:18:22 > 0:18:24but there's a tightness in the form.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28I think the beholder finds this dichotomy,
0:18:28 > 0:18:31this paradox, very satisfying.
0:18:31 > 0:18:36For me, when something is satisfying, it's meeting some sort of need,
0:18:36 > 0:18:40of a seeking of a signal of truth.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46The tips look as they do from the process of their making.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50That, to me, was my fundamental clue on how to work.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52Keep my mind on the process
0:18:52 > 0:18:55and let the resulting object take care of itself.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57What it looked like could take care of itself.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01So long as the process itself was clean and true and pure,
0:19:01 > 0:19:04I could trust that and let the object be
0:19:04 > 0:19:08and not worry it after I'd finished the process.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12The early work, Nine Cracked Balls, was the breakthrough piece.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16These lumps of wood might appear on impressive, but to David Nash,
0:19:16 > 0:19:20they were the spark of inspiration that has guided his work ever since.
0:19:22 > 0:19:27The log, being a tree, you cut down with an axe.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31Fallen, so the end is axe shaped.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34Axe cut. So I just axe cut like that,
0:19:34 > 0:19:41cutting in, rolled it over, so then I can cut the underside.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43So when that lump came off...
0:19:45 > 0:19:49..it was actually the pure result of the process
0:19:49 > 0:19:55of chopping a lump of wood off, a length.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58And then when that came off,
0:19:58 > 0:20:01I then had this rounded shape repeated.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05So I just did it again and did it again
0:20:05 > 0:20:07until there were nine.
0:20:12 > 0:20:17And I'd stored them in a sort of heap in the studio,
0:20:17 > 0:20:19and I'd sort of forgotten about them.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22And then, six months later, they had all cracked,
0:20:22 > 0:20:24so they were all there like grinning at me.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30And it was like saying, come on, David, this is the way to go.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32Go with us.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35So I did. So this is my first step, and that is the key.
0:20:37 > 0:20:38So I got them out,
0:20:38 > 0:20:41and I found that I could put them three rows of three.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43They really made sense.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47I mean, they spoke to me. I sort of did it as a one off,
0:20:47 > 0:20:51and then didn't really
0:20:51 > 0:20:53know whether that was real.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56I wasn't confident about them, then. But I am confident about them now.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59Because they were my first step on the path,
0:20:59 > 0:21:02and I've just gone step by step.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05So as long as I stay true to the path,
0:21:05 > 0:21:09the path seems to be staying true to me.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12Now the Nine Cracked Balls are an important part
0:21:12 > 0:21:18of any museum exhibition that shows the development of Nash's ideas in sculpture.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23And Nash's vision, embodied in his early towers,
0:21:23 > 0:21:28is echoed in these later works that extend high into the gallery space.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37I think what one's got to remember about his stuff is that it's quite precise.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41So, this business of there being a letting-go element,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46where he isn't controlling it, is countered by very clear thinking.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49Art is often about leaps in the dark.
0:21:49 > 0:21:50You could imagine
0:21:50 > 0:21:53his career starting in a rather stumbling way,
0:21:53 > 0:21:57that he discovers something that leads to something else and so on.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00And he isn't entirely confident that he isn't just
0:22:00 > 0:22:04sort of chancing it a bit.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07And as the practice builds up over time,
0:22:07 > 0:22:11he becomes more confident of the overall picture of what he's doing.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14But he wants to retain that element of chancy-ness.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18I think that is a very successful component of what he does.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23But what is lovely and important and profound and admirable
0:22:23 > 0:22:28about what he does, for me, is the way that he can grasp
0:22:28 > 0:22:31this element that occurs a lot in modern art,
0:22:31 > 0:22:35the really chancy and the really, "Well, I don't know
0:22:35 > 0:22:38"what will happen now, and I don't really know what I'm doing.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41"But I have enough confidence in what I've done up to now
0:22:41 > 0:22:43"to take that chance and make it work."
0:22:45 > 0:22:49But while Nash sculptures travel all over the world,
0:22:49 > 0:22:53their home is the chapel.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56At any one time, up to 400 pieces reside here.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01But the sculptures come and go in an ever-changing dance,
0:23:01 > 0:23:05that makes this place the centre of a global sculpture network.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12The chapel is an extraordinary place.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17One has quite as sort of uncanny feeling going into the chapel
0:23:17 > 0:23:20for the first time, because it feels almost as if it's occupied
0:23:20 > 0:23:25by hundreds of living things.
0:23:25 > 0:23:29A kind of congregation, if you like, of work that's thronged there,
0:23:29 > 0:23:32seem to have this unusual vitality.
0:23:32 > 0:23:38So you immediately walk into a space that is full of the smell of wood,
0:23:38 > 0:23:43the rich, warm, tones and colours of wood, but it's sort of animated.
0:23:43 > 0:23:46This is the kind of thing that really struck me about it
0:23:46 > 0:23:50when I first went there - this sense of vitality.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57In preparation for the exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park,
0:23:57 > 0:24:01most of the sculptures were wrapped up and sent on a chapel outing.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05- Doing a tidy job there.- Yeah.
0:24:21 > 0:24:26One local, Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, was amazed by what he saw
0:24:26 > 0:24:27going on in the chapel
0:24:27 > 0:24:31when he was the MP for Blaenau Ffestiniog in the 1970s.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36I just walked up and looked through the windows and saw these,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39obviously what were works of art.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43And I was immediately captivated by it all. Then I got to know David.
0:24:43 > 0:24:48I keep being reinvigorated whenever I meet him or see his work.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Not just a passing interest in the chapel,
0:24:51 > 0:24:55Lord Elis-Thomas's father was a minister here.
0:24:55 > 0:25:00'I'd always had it drummed into me, by my father, that this is where our roots were.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03'And, of course, this particular chapel'
0:25:03 > 0:25:07was the great temple of the Presbyterian Church.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11And that's a verse, of course,
0:25:11 > 0:25:17"Holiness, sanctity, behoves your house", would be the translation.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20But, of course, the holy in religion is something spiritual.
0:25:20 > 0:25:26Art, I think, is a close cousin of that drive
0:25:26 > 0:25:30towards the spiritual, in human life.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33And I think it's very appropriate.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35Well, obviously, it's why he did it, he kept it there,
0:25:35 > 0:25:40because he saw a synergy between what the chapel was in the past
0:25:40 > 0:25:44and the spiritual activity that was here, and the creativity,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47verging on the spiritual, which is in his work.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57I love the idea that there is in this chapel now a new congregation.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00David tells me there at least 400,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04which must make it the best-attended chapel for miles around!
0:26:09 > 0:26:13In the mid-'70s, David Nash began working on a piece of land
0:26:13 > 0:26:15called Cainacoid.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18This became a site where he could experiment with sculpture
0:26:18 > 0:26:22that exists outside of the gallery experience...
0:26:22 > 0:26:24Living sculpture.
0:26:24 > 0:26:29He started exploring this concept by planting a circle of ash trees.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36After decades of nurturing,
0:26:36 > 0:26:40the concept that he had imagined in his drawings has taken shape
0:26:40 > 0:26:44and the Ash Dome, a living sculpture, has been realised.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51Through these living works, Nash has a deeper understanding
0:26:51 > 0:26:55of his materials, incorporating the elements more fully
0:26:55 > 0:26:58into his understanding of wood and trees.
0:26:59 > 0:27:04'What a tree is, it's a weave of all the four classic elements
0:27:04 > 0:27:07'of the earth and the air
0:27:07 > 0:27:13'and the light/fire element and water.
0:27:13 > 0:27:20'They are woven by the energy of the tree, the will forces of the tree.
0:27:20 > 0:27:23'It engages with these elements and some are incredibly resilient,'
0:27:23 > 0:27:28like the ash tree. Its will forces are incredible.
0:27:28 > 0:27:34If you cut them right down at the root, they will just come again.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37If they are damaged, they will just deal with it.
0:27:37 > 0:27:42Other trees are more sensitive and don't necessarily recover.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46So this is what has drawn me into...
0:27:47 > 0:27:51..the elemental forces, this is what nature really is.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54And it is relentless.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57These forces are relentless.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03'Planting the trees, this was something very new to me and very exciting.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07'So with the Ash Dome, that was really my realisation that I could
0:28:07 > 0:28:13'grow a form, a space, from sculptural principles,
0:28:13 > 0:28:17'rather than topiary and gardening, and I could use those skills
0:28:17 > 0:28:22'and the skills of hedging to make a space for the 21st century.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25'This is 1977 - gloomy times, then.'
0:28:25 > 0:28:28People were saying, "We're not going to see the 21st century".
0:28:28 > 0:28:35So this was like a rather naive act of faith, of projecting, then, a concept, when it started.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40A concept which would grow, if it worked. I didn't know if it was going to work, if I could really do this.
0:28:40 > 0:28:45But if it did work, it would mature in the 21st century.
0:28:45 > 0:28:51I think the way that he set up that circle of trees, he's brought his sensibility, his experience
0:28:51 > 0:28:55and his thoughtfulness and soulfulness, to something
0:28:55 > 0:28:58which could be glib, and made it really lovely.
0:28:58 > 0:29:03It has a man-made structure, that sort of circle,
0:29:03 > 0:29:05but it is beautifully structured.
0:29:05 > 0:29:10And that structure pays homage to the way that nature
0:29:10 > 0:29:13is always patterned and structured in the first place.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16And we always appreciate those inherent structures of nature.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24On the other side of the valley to Cainacoid
0:29:24 > 0:29:30and a year after planting Ash Dome, another concept that would also have
0:29:30 > 0:29:33a lasting impact on Nash's work was taking shape.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39The Nine Cracked Balls had driven Nash to discover what would happen
0:29:39 > 0:29:42when a very large volume of wood dried out.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45He cut a big lump from the base of an oak,
0:29:45 > 0:29:48with the intention of taking it to his studio.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53While rolling it down the hill, to get it to his van,
0:29:53 > 0:29:55the rough mass of wood became wedged in a stream.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59It looked good here and Nash decided to leave it.
0:29:59 > 0:30:03Now, nature was in control.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06Consecutive storms washed it further downstream.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10Nash followed the wooden boulder, recording it on a journey
0:30:10 > 0:30:13that lasted 25 years, until it reached the river.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16Now, heading to the sea.
0:30:16 > 0:30:21Well, the Wooden Boulder is geometrically a spherish thing.
0:30:21 > 0:30:27If it was a cube or a triangular shape, it would be manufactured,
0:30:27 > 0:30:29but it looks enough like a boulder
0:30:29 > 0:30:32to be naturally there. It's, sort of, it's in disguise.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36That's the other thing about my outdoor pieces.
0:30:36 > 0:30:39This is low visibility. I am not very interested in making
0:30:39 > 0:30:43big red things outside, which shout at you.
0:30:43 > 0:30:47These earlier works particularly, Wooden Boulder and Ash Dome,
0:30:47 > 0:30:51are very discreet and have low visibility.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55The Wooden Boulder, people would walk past it and think it was a boulder, and that's fine.
0:30:57 > 0:31:01The boulder was travelling an average of eight miles a day -
0:31:01 > 0:31:07four miles with the outgoing tide and four miles back on the incoming tide.
0:31:07 > 0:31:10The artist recording it each time it found a new place to settle.
0:31:14 > 0:31:20In June 2003, it was lost and presumed to have broken free of the estuary
0:31:20 > 0:31:23and made it out to the Irish Sea and on into the Atlantic.
0:31:28 > 0:31:31The film Nash had made of the Wooden Boulder's
0:31:31 > 0:31:34erratic progress became a video installation
0:31:34 > 0:31:37and marked a broadening of the artist's work into multimedia.
0:31:37 > 0:31:44The Wooden Boulder, that's really a hands-off sculpture, whereas the Ash Dome is a hands-on one.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48Part of the concept was that it was a sculpture that would need me to be with it.
0:31:48 > 0:31:50It is an artist-attached sculpture,
0:31:50 > 0:31:54whereas the Wooden Boulder is an artist-observing sculpture.
0:31:55 > 0:31:58But in 2008, Wooden Boulder was rediscovered
0:31:58 > 0:32:00in the River Dwyryd,
0:32:00 > 0:32:03trapped among the branches of a fallen tree.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06The conceptual element is extremely important.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10It's about the artist setting a process off
0:32:10 > 0:32:16and telling us what he's done and then, sort of, leaving it.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19We can follow it or not.
0:32:19 > 0:32:21We can imagine it or not.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25Nature kind of just makes it happen.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29Now with the Wooden Boulder rarely visible, there is also the chance,
0:32:29 > 0:32:33of course, that it will once more disappear from view altogether.
0:32:35 > 0:32:36When David Nash
0:32:36 > 0:32:40creates a wooden boulder that moves around,
0:32:40 > 0:32:44so that you are not quite sure what is the sculptural thing exactly
0:32:44 > 0:32:46about it - is it the form of that object
0:32:46 > 0:32:49or is at the context in which the form is seen?
0:32:49 > 0:32:52Or is it just the idea that the boulder is moving around?
0:32:52 > 0:32:56When he's got those ash trees in a circle and they're growing all the time,
0:32:56 > 0:32:59every time you come to them, they are slightly different.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02Most people will never come to them. They are just a story.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06They have heard about them. They appreciate the idea. So you're not quite sure,
0:33:06 > 0:33:12with those particular works and other ones that he's done, what exactly is the sculptural element.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14It could be many things.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18One is open to all of them, because one is convinced by what he's done.
0:33:18 > 0:33:24So he has, in effect there, quite successfully redefined the definition of sculpture,
0:33:24 > 0:33:30with the Ash Dome and that moving wooden boulder.
0:33:32 > 0:33:37As an artist, Nash has chosen a very difficult means of expression.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41Unlike a painter, who can rub out mistakes on a canvas and start again,
0:33:41 > 0:33:43Nash is committed to each cut he makes.
0:33:43 > 0:33:46Mistakes are not an option.
0:33:49 > 0:33:54A tree is pulling up hundreds of gallons of water every day,
0:33:54 > 0:33:58so when it's been cut down, that piece of wood has got a lot of water in it.
0:33:58 > 0:34:04It takes about two years for that water to actually evaporate out into the air.
0:34:04 > 0:34:11The dry air is pulling it out, so when the water content in the wood is equal to the water content
0:34:11 > 0:34:13of the air, then the wood will settle.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19David, he gets a bit of wood, he does something to it,
0:34:19 > 0:34:24but something goes on happening to that wood after he has done that thing.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28So the wood is doing something to itself, as it were, or the natural processes
0:34:28 > 0:34:33that occur to wood in nature are part of the work.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36Water is evaporated from the wood, so it splits.
0:34:36 > 0:34:41The fact that wood does go on changing over time is, sort of, something that we all know
0:34:41 > 0:34:45and we all experience and all appreciate and rather enjoy it,
0:34:45 > 0:34:50when wood is in its natural element. And him harnessing that
0:34:50 > 0:34:55and making that into a gallery experience, is...
0:34:55 > 0:34:58I don't know if this is the right word, but I'll use it anyway,
0:34:58 > 0:35:00it is, sort of, profoundly enjoyable.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04There is something about the very simplicity of the way he has done it
0:35:04 > 0:35:08that one can appreciate and one finds convincing.
0:35:08 > 0:35:09These crack and warp columns
0:35:09 > 0:35:13are water and air pieces.
0:35:13 > 0:35:19They go into my kiln, which is heated under there.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21There is a dehumidifier.
0:35:21 > 0:35:24And the crack and warp column will be sitting in there like that.
0:35:25 > 0:35:29This air is very dry - v dry.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32And it is pulling it out very, very fast.
0:35:32 > 0:35:34I also found that
0:35:34 > 0:35:40it will preserve a colour, which then remains afterwards.
0:35:40 > 0:35:42If it dries more slowly in a room,
0:35:42 > 0:35:45it can dull.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48The actual wood can dull.
0:35:53 > 0:35:57Indoor sculptures, in controlled conditions, behave in
0:35:57 > 0:36:03a different way to sculptures Nash makes for the outside, where the elements are active on the work.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06When Nash has carved a new piece for an exhibition,
0:36:06 > 0:36:09like this Crack And Warp Column at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park,
0:36:09 > 0:36:12it's not unusual for the sculpture to crack loudly
0:36:12 > 0:36:16as it changes shape during the course of the exhibition.
0:36:19 > 0:36:23Throughout the '70s and early '80s, Nash worked alone.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27But, with his reputation growing, and, with it, a demand for him to
0:36:27 > 0:36:34exhibit in other countries, Nash was to realise the benefits of bringing a team together to create the works.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37So I found myself going to Japan,
0:36:37 > 0:36:39which was amazing.
0:36:39 > 0:36:42And being taken up 6,000 feet,
0:36:42 > 0:36:45in February, to see a fallen tree,
0:36:45 > 0:36:47and I had a team of woodmen.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50They didn't speak English. I don't speak Japanese,
0:36:50 > 0:36:53but we both speak wood, so this was a revelation.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56I wasn't using any skills that they were foreign to.
0:36:56 > 0:37:03They were more skilled than I was with these basic methods of moving wood and cutting wood.
0:37:03 > 0:37:09So, over a period of three weeks, I enacted a wood quarry
0:37:09 > 0:37:12and the results were shown in the Tokyo Museum.
0:37:14 > 0:37:16This way of working,
0:37:16 > 0:37:19that Nash discovered in Japan, was to become a hallmark
0:37:19 > 0:37:23of his approach to creating the work in the coming years.
0:37:23 > 0:37:27Looking at the opportunities a fallen tree offers him,
0:37:27 > 0:37:31like a prospector looking at the properties in an outcrop of rock,
0:37:31 > 0:37:34Nash creates a number of sculptures from one tree.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39With labourers and heavy machines employed for the job,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43a focused industrial atmosphere is created around the site.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48Nash came to call these events "wood quarries."
0:37:48 > 0:37:53The motivation to create them was a simple and practical one,
0:37:53 > 0:37:57but it gave Nash the opportunity to investigate new species of trees
0:37:57 > 0:37:58and begin to create works
0:37:58 > 0:38:01on ever-greater scale.
0:38:17 > 0:38:21'In 1996, I was asked to'
0:38:21 > 0:38:26take a tree down in Ascot, at a school there.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29It was a vast oak tree, which had died.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47In the mid-1990s, a long-term friendship and working relationship
0:38:47 > 0:38:51grew between the artist and a tree surgeon from Sussex.
0:38:51 > 0:38:56This friendship is still enabling Nash to develop ambitious ideas.
0:38:56 > 0:39:02Alan Smith continues to source Nash's materials at his yard, sharing a passion for wood.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07I love it, love it from start to finish.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11I couldn't imagine my life without it. I love wood.
0:39:11 > 0:39:17I once said to David, when I first met him, I thanked him for opening my eyes, really.
0:39:19 > 0:39:26To me, felled trees were logs, went off to a sawmill, if you were lucky, and that kind of thing.
0:39:26 > 0:39:33Art is so much better than that, because although wood in houses and building houses are great...
0:39:36 > 0:39:38..art and in particularly, David's art,
0:39:38 > 0:39:41when it's well looked after, just goes on and on and on.
0:39:41 > 0:39:46I love the idea that something that has come down in the woods
0:39:46 > 0:39:50has got a new life and continuing in that way.
0:39:51 > 0:39:56Working the oak in Ascot, like a seam of slate in the quarries of Blaenau Ffestiniog,
0:39:56 > 0:40:00Nash created some important art here.
0:40:00 > 0:40:03A number of sculptures went to private collections.
0:40:03 > 0:40:04The Tate also acquired a large work
0:40:04 > 0:40:09and, another key piece, King and Queen, was made here.
0:40:16 > 0:40:18Wood doesn't just mature and change.
0:40:19 > 0:40:20It is programmed to decay.
0:40:20 > 0:40:27At the Forest of Dean, David Nash was given the opportunity to explore this aspect of the nature of wood.
0:40:27 > 0:40:35There are these extraordinary works that he has made, which have their own decay and destruction
0:40:35 > 0:40:40built into them, which is a radical idea, in terms of making art.
0:40:40 > 0:40:45You're going to make something that you know will not survive.
0:40:46 > 0:40:52They will rot, they go back into the ground, they become humus and it's all part of a cycle.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56If you make a wooden table to have in your home,
0:40:56 > 0:40:59you're borrowing the material out of that cycle,
0:40:59 > 0:41:04you bring it into your home and, then, if you put it back outside again, it'll go back into the cycle.
0:41:04 > 0:41:11We borrow this material and 90% of what I do is indoor work
0:41:11 > 0:41:15because there is longevity in the wood.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17This is where I like it to be seen.
0:41:17 > 0:41:19These indoor sculptures
0:41:19 > 0:41:23need to be seen indoors. What I do outside has to be very specific
0:41:23 > 0:41:28to the circumstances of where it's sited.
0:41:28 > 0:41:31The outdoor sculptures, with circumstances, like the Black Dome
0:41:31 > 0:41:34in the Forest of Dean, there was charcoal burning there.
0:41:34 > 0:41:39That gave me a clue about charred wood having something to do with
0:41:39 > 0:41:42the burning and the charcoal fires that domed.
0:41:43 > 0:41:46I made a charred wood dome.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49900 pieces of larch - public place.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53I was warned that we had to secure it in.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56Every bit's is wired to the next bit, so they can't be pulled out.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59What I wouldn't anticipated was people walking on it.
0:41:59 > 0:42:05After two years, it was worn and looked like a stroked cat.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08Then there was the health and safety issue.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12To solve that problem we filled it with coal, which is a local material.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15So, it's had an evolution.
0:42:15 > 0:42:21The clue was that if you put a sculpture like that in a public place, people will walk on it.
0:42:21 > 0:42:23The next opportunity I had
0:42:23 > 0:42:25was in America, at the Laumeier Sculpture Park.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28And actually work with the fact of people walking on it
0:42:28 > 0:42:30and eroding it.
0:42:30 > 0:42:34That led on to the steps at Schoenthal, in Switzerland,
0:42:34 > 0:42:38and the steps in the coal at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
0:42:39 > 0:42:44One of the new works Nash created for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park,
0:42:44 > 0:42:46was the permanent piece, Black Steps -
0:42:46 > 0:42:5171 charred steps, embedded in a coal drift.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54An allusion to the former local industry and the major source
0:42:54 > 0:42:58of wealth in the coal seams that run underneath the park.
0:43:03 > 0:43:08Scorching, charring and burning have all been used by Nash to dramatic effect.
0:43:17 > 0:43:23It makes sense that he wants to harness the forces of nature to make art.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26His art is about nature and it is, literally, made out of nature.
0:43:26 > 0:43:33As with a lot of other things that he does, it's about honing down all the possibilities
0:43:33 > 0:43:38that he could do, in an era of utter freedom, where art can be anything you like.
0:43:38 > 0:43:43Honing down, so what he does has consequence and is readable and coherent, even though it has
0:43:43 > 0:43:50elements of light heartedness or elements of mystery and, indeed, sometimes elements of bafflement.
0:43:50 > 0:43:52He wants to make all that convincing.
0:43:52 > 0:43:58Saying "fire is a priority for me or air or water, because those
0:43:58 > 0:44:02"are natural elements", he's not being a mystical or pretentious.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06He's being marvellous and poetic,
0:44:06 > 0:44:08but also there's a commonsense element to it.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14It's a way of highlighting the theme of nature.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17Charring requires focus and precision.
0:44:17 > 0:44:19As well as the element of danger
0:44:19 > 0:44:20to the artist and assistants,
0:44:20 > 0:44:24there's a great risk of destroying the sculpture.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28When you have a wood sculpture, you see wood first, form second.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35When it's black, you see form first...
0:44:37 > 0:44:39..then the material.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48Think of those burnt works, the smell of the charcoal
0:44:48 > 0:44:51and the feel of charcoal, that thing that we're familiar with,
0:44:51 > 0:44:56that density of it, which he's monumentalised, captured and isolated it.
0:44:56 > 0:45:02You sense that burnt, dense, fiery, charcoal dead quality on a very deep level.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06You enjoy that very much, so that you're seeing something,
0:45:06 > 0:45:13a very particular form that is made out of burning, but you're feeling something.
0:45:14 > 0:45:18You've got a combination of the mind and the senses and a sort of soulful response.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21He's capitalising on that. He knows that is so.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25He knows that we're equipped, as humans, to experience art in that way.
0:45:25 > 0:45:32I would say that's operating in everything he does, but it's extreme in the charcoal and burnt things.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37There's the level of smell, the level that we imagine
0:45:37 > 0:45:38what it would be like to touch it,
0:45:38 > 0:45:41even though we're not actually touching it.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52Scorching, charring and burning have all been used by Nash to dramatic effect.
0:45:58 > 0:46:03In 2001, Nash created a powerful charred piece -
0:46:03 > 0:46:07a personal response to global events.
0:46:08 > 0:46:09With 9/11...
0:46:11 > 0:46:18..the television and the newspapers were just full of these images
0:46:18 > 0:46:21and it was very powerful, particularly for me,
0:46:21 > 0:46:26with the falling, that awful falling of those two towers,
0:46:26 > 0:46:30this grinding, and the fact that there were people in there.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34I was in the middle of a very big
0:46:34 > 0:46:36three-block tower piece,
0:46:36 > 0:46:41a big beech, and I cut a slice off the side squaring it.
0:46:41 > 0:46:44The piece that came off looked like
0:46:44 > 0:46:48one of the images, which became a talisman of that event,
0:46:48 > 0:46:54these three spires of that structure, these new crosses, I call them.
0:46:54 > 0:46:56It only took a few cuts to make it.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59These images started pouring out.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02I felt it was completely separate
0:47:02 > 0:47:05and there was an emotional experience,
0:47:05 > 0:47:13which I hadn't had before in making it, because the whole of the world was feeling this.
0:47:13 > 0:47:15There was this pure response.
0:47:15 > 0:47:22I have always seen that as a separate body of work, certainly not for sale.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25Seeing them in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, there's still
0:47:25 > 0:47:30that echo of that feeling that I had when I was making them.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34It's still there and they really do seem to speak to people.
0:47:48 > 0:47:50Many of Nash's sculptures
0:47:50 > 0:47:53ARE for sale and are seen in exhibitions around the world,
0:47:53 > 0:47:56where placement is part of the artist's craft.
0:47:57 > 0:48:03With a gallery show, the pieces together have to make sense together,
0:48:03 > 0:48:05because I'm doing it for whoever is coming in,
0:48:05 > 0:48:08to come into a particular atmosphere,
0:48:08 > 0:48:14in the spaces between the things, how they resonate off each other.
0:48:14 > 0:48:20There is a theatrical aspect to it, but they are, nonetheless, autonomous, individual objects,
0:48:20 > 0:48:26which in a commercial gallery sense, these are pieces that people can take into their own lives.
0:48:26 > 0:48:32Some collectors buy with an eye on the investment
0:48:32 > 0:48:36and that is an aspect of it, but the true collectors
0:48:36 > 0:48:41are the ones who just love art and they love to have it in their lives.
0:48:41 > 0:48:46To have three such simple elements
0:48:46 > 0:48:49caused me to say, "Wow!"
0:48:52 > 0:48:56The moment I saw them, across the pond in Wales, in the mist,
0:48:56 > 0:49:04it was just a "Wow!" I immediately started going through in my mind,
0:49:04 > 0:49:11"Where on my property could I give this incredible sculpture a perfect home?"
0:49:11 > 0:49:14I took quite some time to figure it out,
0:49:14 > 0:49:19because it's a very large piece and I don't have large, flat pieces
0:49:19 > 0:49:21of land waiting for a piece like that.
0:49:21 > 0:49:25Roger Evans is one of Nash's most enthusiastic collectors,
0:49:25 > 0:49:28shipping sculptures to his home in California.
0:49:30 > 0:49:38It's the subset of artists that are interested in real dialogue with a collector, such as myself,
0:49:38 > 0:49:41and, for those, I think they really enjoy
0:49:41 > 0:49:44understanding, on what level...
0:49:47 > 0:49:50..a collector, like me, responds to their work.
0:49:50 > 0:49:57Often, it is at a level that they haven't thought about,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00particularly for somebody who collects art
0:50:00 > 0:50:03in a non-intellectual way, such as myself.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06What they get from me in terms of feedback is raw emotion
0:50:06 > 0:50:12and I think people like David probably appreciate that a lot.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20Roger Evans has found that living with Nash's sculpture,
0:50:20 > 0:50:25the collector can connect with the work and feel part of the experience.
0:50:25 > 0:50:28In particular, some of the works that continue to live
0:50:28 > 0:50:30after they're made, the Crack and Warp pieces,
0:50:30 > 0:50:33the pieces that are still wet when they are finished,
0:50:33 > 0:50:37and depending on what local they end up residing in,
0:50:37 > 0:50:41they really do continue to have a life, as they dry and crack and move about.
0:50:41 > 0:50:48And there's a wonderful interaction, I've noticed, between the people that live with that work.
0:50:48 > 0:50:53The more time you spend looking at a great piece of art,
0:50:53 > 0:50:57the more you see in it - unlike wallpaper.
0:50:57 > 0:51:02Each of these responses to one of the pieces of art keeps
0:51:02 > 0:51:07enlarging the experience of living with that particular work.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16Oh, he is a cult figure, he has a huge following.
0:51:16 > 0:51:20Some of the people that come to his openings, I'm not sure
0:51:20 > 0:51:25I'd ever see them under any other circumstances, it's quite fantastic, really.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29You can tell they just engage instantly and the language of wood,
0:51:29 > 0:51:33that David does mention on many occasions, truly is its own.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38The United States is now not just a marketplace
0:51:38 > 0:51:41for Nash's works - it's a supplier of material.
0:51:44 > 0:51:47With magnificent species, such as eucalyptus, growing in abundance
0:51:47 > 0:51:50in California, trees regularly become available.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54And Nash has his scouts.
0:51:54 > 0:51:59As well as access to massive fallen trees, Evan's Wood Yard has the
0:51:59 > 0:52:03specialist expertise and equipment in this transatlantic partnership.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06I had the pleasure of meeting David for the first time,
0:52:06 > 0:52:10maybe three or four years ago. I didn't realise that we'd been
0:52:10 > 0:52:14building his candy store this whole time!
0:52:14 > 0:52:16But he did, as soon as he drove in.
0:52:45 > 0:52:50It is fascinating, in working with him, in that the conversation goes both ways.
0:52:50 > 0:52:57Sequoia trees have been growing for thousands of millennia in their forms,
0:52:57 > 0:53:01but now I walk in for a forest and I'll say, "My, that's a Nashy one, isn't it?"
0:53:05 > 0:53:09I tease him sometimes by calling him "the artomatic".
0:53:09 > 0:53:13What I mean by that is he
0:53:13 > 0:53:16lives it, breathes it.
0:53:16 > 0:53:21Every time, every moment of the day or night, it is always percolating.
0:53:28 > 0:53:35A massive eucalyptus is the latest large lump of wood that Evans has sourced for David Nash.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40The oculus block was formed out of a huge root and trunk -
0:53:40 > 0:53:4512 tonnes, 2.4 metres across and three metres high -
0:53:45 > 0:53:48four trees that fused together as they grew.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53Now it's being installed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56He started making the table pieces in the early '70s and,
0:53:56 > 0:54:03in a sense, this is the largest and the most distinguished table piece of all.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06For me, it doesn't really need to symbolise anything.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08The thing is what it is.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10It could be nothing else in the world.
0:54:15 > 0:54:22I love that idea that David has brought together all of these different agencies
0:54:22 > 0:54:27and then to develop the equipment that was necessary to cut the edges from it,
0:54:27 > 0:54:34which were chainsaws, double-ended chainsaws, a motor at each end.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37There was about 20 feet of chain on those saws.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40Two guys holding the saws, so that they were on lifts,
0:54:40 > 0:54:45and as they came down the piece, they shaved off these edges
0:54:45 > 0:54:48and slicing of those pieces of wood in one go,
0:54:48 > 0:54:51so that you get this incredible surface.
0:54:51 > 0:54:57The chainsaw is just to make a straight cut, but also to be able to make one simple gesture.
0:54:57 > 0:55:02You can see the lines, the marks of the tool going uninterrupted
0:55:02 > 0:55:07across the face and to emphasise the simplicity
0:55:07 > 0:55:12of his minimal nature of his interventions into it.
0:55:14 > 0:55:18Almost how little it took, with the right insight, to make it into a sculpture.
0:55:18 > 0:55:24I don't know what the single element is that makes that Oculus work impressive.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28Maybe it's scale, because it's big, but a lot of works are big.
0:55:28 > 0:55:33Maybe it's the beauty of trees, anyway, but that's a common beauty.
0:55:33 > 0:55:38Maybe it's the flourish of the way he's created it,
0:55:38 > 0:55:41that it's so cleanly done and so unfussy.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45I think it's a combination of all those things and it's
0:55:45 > 0:55:50an example of that rare thing in art where you really feel
0:55:50 > 0:55:53it couldn't have been done any other way.
0:55:53 > 0:55:58It's beautiful, you like it, you'd be very happy to see it, repeatedly,
0:55:58 > 0:56:04very happy to come back to it and it lines up in one's mind,
0:56:04 > 0:56:06along with certain art experiences,
0:56:06 > 0:56:11that make you happy to be alive, in a rather uncomplicated way.
0:56:11 > 0:56:14There's a kind of calligraphy happening here,
0:56:14 > 0:56:19it's like a Zen calligraphy, where all of the idea, the intent
0:56:19 > 0:56:22and the physical process of making this work
0:56:22 > 0:56:26goes into this one, fluid moment.
0:56:26 > 0:56:30It's all very pragmatic and logical
0:56:30 > 0:56:34and technical and really thought through and worked out.
0:56:34 > 0:56:41The end result is something that's actually really poetic and really beautiful.
0:56:41 > 0:56:43And I love it for all of those reasons.
0:56:49 > 0:56:52On May 28th, 2010,
0:56:52 > 0:56:56David Nash at Yorkshire Sculpture Park opened.
0:56:56 > 0:57:00A very significant exhibition, bringing together
0:57:00 > 0:57:03Nash's past and present,
0:57:03 > 0:57:06providing a platform to launch into his future.
0:57:08 > 0:57:13He's an artist who connects to very many moments in the history
0:57:13 > 0:57:21of culture, where nature is exalted and the relationship between mankind and nature is urgent and important.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29Artists don't retire. People retire to be artists.
0:57:29 > 0:57:31It's just a question of deepening the work.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42My attempt at making an epic statement with the towers is as though the room is the tower
0:57:42 > 0:57:47and the exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park is really that tower,
0:57:47 > 0:57:50but I'm not trying to do everything in one piece.
0:57:50 > 0:57:52I've separated the ideas out.
0:57:52 > 0:57:57When you're young, you're going to have a lot of ideas coming at you, but just get them in there,
0:57:57 > 0:58:01put them in, don't worry about whether they relate to each other.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04The ideas are so precious, you have to touch on them in some way and you
0:58:04 > 0:58:08have the rest of your life to sort it out. That's what I've been doing.
0:58:08 > 0:58:15The Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a show of how what I've sorted out from those initial years.
0:58:16 > 0:58:22I think in your 60s, 70s and on, this is a time for being very clear.
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